Remembering

On Mother's Day, Roy and I planted my flower garden. We woke up early Sunday morning and trekked to Home Depot in the little red pickup that is home for the summer and loaded it up with begonias and petunias and marigolds (to name a few) and potting soil and deep red mulch. And then Sunday evening we raked and dug and pulled weeds and planted flowers and spread mulch and placed our garden decor just so...then stood back and called it good.

And now? Oh how I love going outside and walking by this little garden that makes my heart swell with happiness. At night, it is alive with blinking butterflies and a happy little frog that sits underneath a lit lily pad and flitting dragonflies that make merry on my porch railing. Before I head to bed each night I take just a few minutes to step outside, look around at the bursting beauty, look up at the never ending night sky that reminds me--

...how small and insignificant I really am...

...how something much greater than me is alive and well in this universe...

...how blessed I am to have the gift of life and it is my job to cherish it...

It has been a hard week and I have needed those reminders.

Darian endured a major surgery to repair a hernia that caused her great pain last week and this week she went back under the knife to have a mole with irregular cells excised. This reality has left her shaken as left untreated the mole could have turned to melanoma.  However? She is fine now but the doctor has warned her to please be careful and stay out of the sun. This warning has reminded her that life is fragile. She is debating if staying in the States next year rather than traveling to a third world country where medical care is sketchy at best is the better choice. Darian is a worrier and she recognizes that if she leaves, she will have no peace about the moles on her back that could be changing unawares.

Other people that I dearly love are hurting this week--hurting so terribly. And all I can do is stand in the background, a silent witness to raw pain.

I have borne witness this week to the agony of a hurting mother and the gut-wrenching silence of a dad consumed with worry.

I have seen a dear friend of mine who normally bears the burdens of others struggling with his own world that has crashed down.

And one of my own loved ones is facing a crisis.

Sometimes life can be so wretched. Sometimes the very things we have dedicated our lives to turn against us and leave us forsaken.

I believe that we need to find joy in life, that we need to cherish those times that are filled with laughter and love and light. Traditions and family and friendship and bursting flowers and decadent chocolate and an ever rising moon and the comforts of home are constants in our lives that, at times, we take for granted...

But then there are times when we are slammed with the reality that life isn't easy, that life can be more painful than not. And those times? They change us. They make us realize that we are fragile, that our health is not to be reckoned with carelessly, that those we love are but a heartbeat away from a new reality that leaves us shaken. Those times leave us flat on our backs wondering if we can manage to simply take the next breath.

We've all been there...and we'll all be there again--because that is just how life rolls.

And it is those times, in my opinion, that bring depth to the joy we experience once we have survived the pain...because we realize that everything can change on a dime.

Last night I went outside and stood at my railing for just a minute.

I needed some time to breathe, to look up at the night sky and remember that, in the end, everything is going to be okay.

Life may change in shades. But together, hand in hand, we'll get through it...

We'll learn to lean because sometimes it's just too much to stand.

And we'll keep looking up, remembering.